


Where Loyalties Lie

by writer_zo



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, M/M, angel!Ligur, every demon is just trauma walking around in a trenchcoat, honestly? same, ressurected!Ligur, w o r m s, yes the jersey devil is in this fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 11:02:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19227859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writer_zo/pseuds/writer_zo
Summary: Ligur dies under a waterfall of holy water. Moments later, the angel Limiel--pure and naive and without memories--wakes up in Heaven. It's up to Hastur (and several more competent types) to get Limiel out of a Heaven that seems determined to kill him--and away from a Hell he won't go back to.





	Where Loyalties Lie

**Author's Note:**

> Uh oh! I've dug up the *worms!*

Hastur wondered what it would be like to swallow a pint of holy water and end it all.

Some demons wondered about the nature of holy water--its exact ingredients, what it did to a demon after contact. Or, really,  _ one _ demon had wondered about the nature of holy water, and it had been Crowley. Crowley with his damned questions and damned imagination.

It took a little imagination to wonder about the exact results of holy water, and what it did to an immortal on contact. Too much imagination for the average demon.

It didn’t take any imagination to want to drown in it, when you’d been having a week like Hastur’s.

“Reporting,” he said, as Beelzebub wrinkled her nose and shifted on her grime-ridden throne.

“Hasztur,” she said, eyes dull and lightless as a penny worn to nothing but smooth metal in a gutter. “Izz everything going badly for thoszze you have swayed to our side?”

“Yes, my lord,” Hastur replied. Beelzebub scowled--well, scowled  _ more _ than her usual scowl. She’d been in a terrible mood these last few weeks, likely due to a Heaven of a lot of the same reasons. 

“Right,” she said, as usual, not bothering with a thank you. Solid work was expected in Hell. “You still working on the prieszts? Turning them away from the straight and narrow?”

“Yes. The whole lot of them will be hours by the time Death takes them.” Hastur forced a smile, a cruel little smirk. He really couldn’t care--strange for a demon from Hell. The end of the world wasn’t coming any more. What was there to care for?

“Where’sz Ligur?” Beelzebub barked, eyes narrowing. 

Hastur felt his hand twitch. It was a strange twitch, angry and  _ hurt _ . No, not hurt. Demons couldn’t be hurt. Only enraged.

“He bit it, remember?” Hastur said, “Gone forever. Holy water.”

“Ah. That’s right.” Beelzebub said. Her face didn’t change, and Hastur--despite himself, despite his nature--almost felt angry. The creature on his head curled more tightly around his skull. 

“Keep driving for it in London,” she continued, looking at him with an almost admirable lack of emotion. “And steer clear of the szzzerpent.” 

_ There _ was the rage. The comfortable, deep sense of rightness-in-wrong, in utter hatred of an opposing force. All things that a proper demon should be feeling. And then, just below it--just scraping the surface with a single claw--was something sad, something in Ligur’s shape. Something he beat into the depths of his mind and buried with haste.

“With pride,” he said, bowing his head. “Your lordship.”

He turned and walked away, quickly, footsteps snapping against the wet-bone floor of Hell. Nothing felt right anymore. Not without a right-hand man. He could feel her eyes on his back. He could feel Dagon’s eyes on his back. He could hear nothing but the endless buzzing of flies, which seemed to become louder and louder even as he walked away.

\---

He was watching the man in the black shirt.

It was summer, the last few days of summer, when Britain’s weather gave one last hurrah and gave a single warm weekend before the start of the usual dreary downpours. The man in the black shirt, a priest-to-be, was running his errands, thinking of the scripture and the word of his idea of God. 

He was thinking about all of this because he was trying not to think about the pretty women walking by.

Yes, the pretty women. The ones in short skirts and long pants and everything in between. One who reached to tie her shoe--oh, he hadn’t even put thoughts in the priest’s head then. Thoughts made all the better by the fact that the girl’s girlfriend had noticed, and given the priest an obscene gesture that would haunt him in his most humiliating memories until the day he died.

Hastur continued following the man, who was now murmuring under his breath, face pink with anything but heat. This man, this  _ hypocrite _ was a mockery of humankind. The demon smiled, thinking of the small candle of this man’s life, how it was turning into smoke before his own eyes. The man smelled of secret cigarettes, of sweat and held breath from silent screaming. 

In other words, he smelled damned. Delicious.

A man bumped into the priest, and Hastur felt the frog on his head grumble contentedly beneath his wig. This--now, he hadn’t even considered this idea. Making a priest have  _ thoughts _ about this man? Now that was temptation. There was nothing evil about being gay in the slightest, but the amount of  _ guilt _ that it would cause could tip him over the edge.

“I’m so sorry!” The priest gasped, reaching to help steady the pedestrian. Hastur licked his lips and flicked his fingers, prepared to cause a demonic miracle, to set this priest’s fate in stone with guilt and drive him down.

And nothing happened.

Hastur wondered if he’d made a mistake. But he couldn’t have. Miracling was like breathing--simple and clean, no room for error. The lack of a response, the lack of a stronger scent of fear from the priest, didn’t just show that Hastur had failed.

He’d been blocked.

“That’s alright,” said the man that the priest had bumped into. “You didn’t mean it.”

The voice made Hastur freeze in place.

_ No. _

The voice sounded light, as though the owner had just finished a cup of tea and honey, but it still held a growl, a slight lingering hoarseness that made Hastur’s mind feel as though it had been clawed to pieces.

It was  _ familiar. _ And at the same time, it was absolutely alien. It felt as though he’d lost an old, trusty dagger, then found it again, only he’d found it cleaned of rust and tarnish and shining like a beacon on his doorstep.

The priest smiled at the strange, familiar man, and moved on. Unaffected.  _ Less  _ affected--purified, accepting himself for his errors. Miraculously pure.

Hastur reached to erase the feeling and felt the same block. The same  _ holy _ block.

An angel in the area. There was an angel in the area, and he couldn’t care less, because the man who’d bumped into the priest, with his high cheekbones and smooth skin and hair shaved into a soft thatch of spikes at the top of his head, looked  _ just  _ like Ligur.

He cringed back as the man turned to look at him. He had odd, luminous eyes, ones that seemed to be highlighted with more light than the normal human’s eyes. Shit. Shit.

Whyever this man looked like Hastur’s f--Hastur’s associate--he was an angel. An angel who was looking directly at him, looking surprised, then angry, in a pure, righteous, pouty way so common to his kind.

Hastur turned around and started to walk into the nearest crowd. Head down. Breath coming through his throat in wheezing gasps. His arms flared with gooseflesh.

An angel. One who resembled Ligur.

What a week.

“Sir!” The voice--was someone upstairs having a laugh? The voice was a dead bleeding ringer for Ligur’s. Except it was smoothed out, as though someone had taken all of its hard edges and rubbed them into nothing.

“Bugger off!” Hastur called, ducking out of the crowd and into an alleyway. His heart--the heart his body came with--was beating a strange rhythm in his chest, something unnatural. Something that shouldn’t have been happening. He’d met--spoken to-- _ killed _ angels before. This should have had no effect on him other than being an irritant, a reminder of  _ Crawly _ and the kinds of idiots who cared for the enemy.

“Sir! Uh, I mean, demon!” The familiar angel repeated. He’d followed Hastur into the alleyway. “Sir, in the name of God, stop!” 

Hastur turned back to look. The angel’s brow was furrowed, and his step was quick. Damned if he didn’t look like a little copy of Gabriel! He was wearing a gray suit, a high collar, cleaned and primped for a day no one would care about. 

Enough. He was going to leave.

He quickened, prepared to vanish into the shadows at his right, and was slammed into a wall, the angel lunging to push him down. Shit.

“I  _ said _ bugger off!” Hastur snarled, but the angel grabbed him harder, pressing his face into the brick of the building hard enough to leave lines. His hands were clawing at the side of the wall, trying to push himself off. 

“Who are you?” The angel asked, close to his ear. His breath smelled disgustingly pure--no  _ scent _ at all.

“None o’ your business!” Hastur said, the sound low and wet and angry.

The back of his head jarred against stone as he was whirled around and slammed into the wall.

“Who  _ are _ you?” The angel asked, face inches from his.

Hastur lifted a hand to gouge at the man’s eyes, then stopped.

The man was  _ terrified _ . His eyes were bright with fear, but devoid of recognition. Devoid of anything at all. The eyes of an animal, one just granted consciousness while alone in the wilderness, a creature coming into adulthood. He was barely even  _ holding _ Hastur. His hands were shaking.

The demon swallowed. What was happening?

Despite himself, he looked to his feet, and actually responded.

“Hastur.” He looked into the angel’s eyes. Searching for something.

And he got it.

There was a spark in there, behind the waterfall of vacant holiness. A spark of hellfire, of a memory. A memory that _ couldn’t  _ be a memory, because Ligur was dead and gone for all eternity.

“I…” the angel said. “I know you. I  _ know _ you. I knew you.”

“No, you didn’. I’ve never met you.” Hastur said, trying not to look at his face. At anything about him. 

“Yes, you have!” The angel said. “You must have!”  
“And why d’ you think _that_?” They were nose-to-nose, the angel’s eyes roving wildly around his face.

“Because you’re the  _ first _ person I’ve recognized, besides Gabriel, since I woke up.” The angel said. His voice was becoming less holy, less pure and refined, and the further resemblance was making Hastur’s blood feel colder than it already was: frigid. Frozen.

“...Ligur.” Hastur said. No inflection. No emotion added to the word.

The angel completely stopped moving. His hands fell to his sides. Hastur--unarmed, alone, and baffled--could kill him in a moment.

And he, for a reason he could not imagine for more reasons than one, did nothing but watch the angel’s face. Watching for a flower of fallen glory to bloom, for him to smile as he used to, the wicked and ruthless smile that had made him a tolerable ally.

No. A friend.

_ Ligur had been his friend _ .

And now this  _ angel _ \--impossibly--was nodding. Nodding like he knew  _ something _ incredibly important, and it was making Hastur want to start screaming over and over again.

“They… they called me Limiel.” The angel said, looking at Hastur with wonder in his eyes, as though  _ Hastur  _ were the angel. “I knew it was wrong. I  _ knew _ it was wrong!”

“And what,” Hastur hissed, baring his teeth, “‘m I supposed to do about it?”

Limiel-- _ Ligur? _ \--kept looking at him in that infuriating  _ needy, nice  _ way that way so familiar. It was the last look on Ligur’s face when Crowley, the crazy snake backed into a corner, dumped sanctified water on his head and ended him.

Limiel lifted his hands, a gesture of submission, of loss of control, then ran them over the heavy gray fabric as though molting skin. 

“I don’t know who I am. I woke up weeks ago, and I didn’t remember anything at all. You are the first person I’ve really  _ recognized _ .” He breathed. “Everyone acts as though I’ve done something terrible.  _ Help me. _ ”

It was impossible. Holy water was death--utter oblivion, not just discorporation. Ligur couldn’t be in front of him now, and yet his voice was coming from the throat of this clean-suited, soft person, as though he were possessed. 

Hastur swallowed hard.

\---

“Get in.”

“Who owns this?” Limiel jumped into the back seat and shut the door behind him, gripping the seat with tight hands, skin drawn over his knuckles so tightly that Hastur could see the outline of the bone. 

“Issa fucking taxi,” Hastur said, scowling. “We came up with ‘em.”

“We. You mean Hell?” Limiel asked, blinking those dopey, holy eyes. Hastur curled his lip and looked away from him. Was this still his friend? Wiped off and sent back to the above, just like that?

“Course I mean Hell,” Hastur grumbled, readjusting his wig. “Don’t make me regre’ this.”

“Sorry.”

“Shut  _ up _ .”

“Where to?” the driver asked, turning over her shoulder to look at the both of them. She froze as her eyes settled on Hastur, then turned back around, as though jabbed back into place with an electric cattle prod. Mitzy Mell had known her fair share of bad types--she’d been a burlesque performer in the 80’s, and that had been more than enough to convince her that nearly everyone had a dark side. 

Seeing Hastur, however--she’d felt  _ real _ murk. 

Hastur smirked at her reaction, then wracked his brain for the location he’d been trying to remember for the past 30 minutes, the past  _ panicked _ half hour when he’d screeched and hissed at himself to  _ stop this _ under his breath. 

\---

_ “I need to get out,” Lig--Limiel had said, as Hastur half-dragged him through the more shadowy corners of the alleys. _

_ “Then fall.” _

_ “I can’t. That puts--I’m not trying to fall.” Limiel looked at him in a way that made Hastur clench his fists into claws.  _

_ “So whaddya want?” Hastur snapped. “You’re tryin’ to get outta Heaven because you think they ‘ave it out for you. You came to me for ‘elp, so I’ll do one favor and then you get the Heaven out.” _

_ “Who--nevermind.” Limiel had stumbled as Hastur jerked him around a corner, reaching for his arm, staring around London like a mouse in a tiger cage. “I need to go native.” _

_ Hastur had stopped. Turned. Gawked at Limiel until the angel dropped his head, embarrassed. _

_ “You want to go native? How the--” _

_ “I just need to get away. Both sides. Every day is a bloody nightmare in Heaven. Gabriel acts like he’s just waiting for me to fall.” _

_ “And Hell’s too icky for you? Not good enough?” Hastur snapped. _

_ “I died there!” Limiel said, throwing a hand into the air. “That’s all I remember. I’m not--” _

_ “Holy water killed you.” _

_ “I don’t care,” Limiel said, voice cracking. “I don’t care! I’m not going back. I want to go native. I’ll be in debt to you.” _

_ Hastur stared at him, then screeched, kicking a trash can with enough force to bend it in half. Limiel jumped, putting hands in front of his face, as though prepared for a lunge. He nearly fell face-first to the ground when Hastur grabbed him by the collar and kept leaving. _

_ “You’re gonna get me killed!”  _

_ Limiel sucked in a breath. “So you--you’re going to help me?” _

_ “You’re gonna get us both killed,” Hastur said, more quietly. _

\---

Hastur had barked the orders at the driver in rapid succession, then left the car as quickly as he could move. He’d glanced back and growled to see Limiel pass her miracled money--with tip. 

“Where are we?” The angel asked. He followed behind as Hastur lead him past a Bentley, through a sleek door, up a flight of stairs.

“The only place where you gotta shot,” Hastur snarled, glaring all around him.

“Where?” Limiel asked, again. The idiot kept trying to reach for Hastur’s arm. “Where  _ is _ this? I feel like I’m dying.”

Hastur stopped. Limiel bumped into him from behind. The demon quickly kept moving, trying to shake the image of the smoke, of the melting from his head.

“We’re in a bad idea.”

“What?” Ligur asked again, and then Hastur was on the move.

They came to a door. It was locked from the inside, and had a number on the front--one all-too-familiar.

Hastur hammered on it and stepped back. There was a rustling inside. A few thumps.

“If you’ll excuse us, we’re not interested in--” the man opening the door was not Crowley. It was another angel--the blonde one in the soft brown suit.

“Oh, dear.” Aziraphale’s face dropped. “Crowley? Crowley, I--”

“ _ Listen _ , angel,” Hastur snarled, Limiel just behind him. “I’m no’ here for any funny business. Just need to fill in a favor for my… associate. Ask a few questions and all.”

He said the words as though he were planning on asking the questions while tearing the angel into bite-sized pieces, and then  _ Crawly _ was in the doorway, putting himself in front of his angel and blocking the entire frame.

“Hastur,” Crowley said, eyes narrowed under his glasses, “I thought we had an agreement.”

“I’m not ‘ere to try again. I…” Hastur licked his lips. “I…  _ need help _ .”

Aziraphale peered out from behind Crowley, his baffled face a mirror of the demon in front of him.

_ Living together. Made sense. _

“With what?” Crowley said, motioning for Aziraphale to move back, father into the flat.

“This.” Hastur said, pushing Limiel into the doorway.

Crowley blinked. Once. Twice. Removed his sunglasses.

“ _ Ligur _ ?” He asked. Limiel tried to wave. Hastur forced his hands down.

“That’s… I’m… Limiel.” said the angel.

Crowley stared, then stepped back, only once.

“Go--Satan--Somebody-damn.” Crowley said.

 


End file.
